


You Deserve What You Are Given

by Zee



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, First Time, Implied Blue/Gansey, Implied Sexual Content, Making Out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4661478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zee/pseuds/Zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah slipped his hand in hers, and as cold as it was Blue still felt a surge of warmth run through her. She remembered kissing him, the beautiful ache of it, and wondered why they’d only done it once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Deserve What You Are Given

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Blue Sargent Appreciation Week. Title is from Florence + The Machine's "Third Eye."

It was one of the worst Nino’s shifts that Blue had ever experienced, at least in recent memory: she’d dropped a plate, messed up an order, her last table hadn’t tipped, and the restaurant was full of Aglionby boys. Usually Blue could brush off anything that happened while she was working; she dealt with any emotion or exhaustion efficiently, shoving it down to be released only during her bike ride home. Nino’s was Nino’s which meant it was always at least a little bit shitty. She didn’t have any righteous indignation left for her job.

But tonight, tonight she was having a surprisingly difficult time holding it together. She asked for her break earlier than usual, and the manager acquiesced with an annoyed tilt to his mouth. She grabbed a slice of pizza and disappeared out the back where the smokers went, sitting down on the parking lot gravel and shoving food in her mouth. Her eyes were _not_ welling up. She would take her twenty minutes and be fine.

“Fuck that table,” came a voice above her, and Blue looked up, startled. Noah was standing with his hands in his pockets, illuminated by the streetlight behind him. She could see through his forehead, just slightly. 

Blue swallowed her lump of pizza and wiped tomato sauce off her mouth. “Whatever. It’s not a big deal.” The disrespect stung almost more than the lack of a tip. “How did you know? Have you been watching me?”

“No! I’m not a creep. I just knew,” Noah said. He seemed genuinely taken aback at the thought that he’d been watching, even though Blue wouldn’t really have minded.

Blue was about to stand and join him but he was already crouching down, sitting next to her with his back to the wall. For a while they didn’t say anything. Blue finished her slice, and Noah tapped out a rhythm on his knee.

“It’s not usually so bad,” she said when she was finished. “Tonight is just--ugh. I don’t know. I’m cursed.”

“I’m sorry,” Noah said. “I don’t think you’re cursed. I think this place just sucks.”

Blue smiled at him and pulled him into a hug. He was cold, but not uncomfortably so. His arms wrapped around her and one of his hands found its way into her hair. She liked touching him, liked giving him a reminder that he was present if not alive. 

There was something incredibly easy about loving Noah Czerny. Her affection for him was like water flowing downhill. Natural as gravity.

“Thanks,” she said as they let each other go. Noah beamed at her, and Blue grinned back. “What are you doing here, anyway? Did something happen”

Noah shook his head. “No, don’t worry, nothing happened.” His smile was small and secretive. “I just felt like visiting you.”

Blue felt a little trill of specialness run up her spine. Somehow this felt different from when all four Raven Boys came during a shift; she appreciated it, but it also forced her to wistfully observe their boisterous kinship without her as she waited on other tables. This, on the other hand, was hers and hers alone. “It’s nice of you to come see me.”

“I’m not being _nice,_ ” Noah said, a little affronted. “I get something out of this, you know.”

“And what’s that?”

“The pleasure of your company.” He slipped his hand in hers, and as cold as it was Blue still felt a surge of warmth run through her. She remembered kissing him, the beautiful ache of it, and wondered why they’d only done it once.

Because of Gansey, of course. And maybe Adam too. Because it felt too daring to create something new, something that was just Blue-and-Noah, when the connections between the five of them were so carefully constructed, delicate and more important than anything else in their universe.

And, Blue supposed, because Noah was dead. Funny how that was always an afterthought. 

Still holding her hand, Noah reached up and touched her nose with his index finger. “You’re thinking too hard. About what?”

“You.” Blue leaned her head on his shoulder. He was satisfyingly solid, although she knew that could change. “I think I love you.”

It felt good to say it. Her gratitude to Noah for coming to visit on this terrible night collided with all the reasons why they couldn’t be together, and the reasons withered and dissipated in the face of it. This felt right. It was a different sort of love than what she had for Gansey--less anxious, less angry--but no less real. Noah accepted her whole entire self every time she was around him, and she loved him for it.

“Oh,” Noah said softly. She felt cold lips brush the top of her head. “I know I love you.”

Blue was keenly aware of the pizza on her breath and the gravel beneath her thighs. Her mind focused on these small, practical details instead of what they’d just said to each other. Ever sensible, even as her heart soared. 

“That’s good,” she said, voice faint. What if it didn’t matter that Noah was dead--she was a psychic’s daughter, after all, why couldn’t she date a ghost?

“You should come by the house later,” she added, feeling daring. “After my shift ends.”

She was close enough to feel him swallow, a strange motion for a dead boy. “Okay. Sure.”

“I have to go back inside.” But she didn’t move.

“Don’t let me keep you.” His hand still in hers.

Blue sat up enough to look him in the eye. His lips were slightly parted, and he didn’t lean back when she leaned in. It wasn’t much, just her lips brushing his, but it made longing sing inside her. 

It was so deeply wrong that Noah had been murdered. The wrongness of it stuck in her heart like a thorn, jagged and unyielding.

“I’ll go,” Noah whispered. And he did, the air around her suddenly warmer, her hand empty and her lips touching nothing. 

Blue got to her feet and brushed gravel from her legs. Strange, to realize she loved a ghost in the middle of a Nino’s shift. But she welcomed strange by this point. Strangeness had been with her all her life, and this specific strangeness, the kind that trailed after the Raven Boys like a comet trail, had arrived last St. Mark’s Day. It was comfortable by now, and in fact she hated to think of what her life would be like without it. 

Magic was real, and she loved a ghost. These were the facts that she wrapped around her like armor as she returned to waiting tables. 

***

Exhaustion crawled across her skin like a thousand tiny ants by the time she arrived back at 300 Fox Way. It was well after midnight and the house was mostly quiet; ‘mostly’ was as quiet as this house ever got. Orla was awake, doing her nails in the living room, but Blue didn’t run into anyone else.

Noah was waiting for her in her room, perched on the edge of her bed. The intimacy of it made Blue’s cheeks heat up. She could feel his eyes on her as she shut the door as quietly as possible and went to sit next to him.

“Is this what you want?” Noah asked, a roughness to his voice that Blue had never heard before.

“It’s exactly what I want,” Blue said. She put her hand on his knee and he reached up, cupping her cheek. A cold thumb brushed her jaw. Blue smiled at him, feeling just a little helpless in a pleasant way, and he ducked his head to kiss her.

This time they didn’t have to try to get it right, because it was right from the start. Noah’s mouth was soft and inviting, and Blue found herself opening her mouth to deepen the kiss. Noah’s tongue touching hers transformed the exhaustion in her skin into an elated, tingling feeling. She was wide awake.

“I must smell like Nino’s,” she murmured. She felt it against her skin when Noah smiled.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I must smell like death.”

Blue laughed, and Noah’s hand pressed into the small of her back. He kissed his way across her cheek and down her throat. Blue discovered that she quite liked having her neck kissed. Noah asked her if this was okay before everything he did: kissing her collarbone, unhooking her bra, removing her shirt, removing other things. Blue said yes over and over until ‘yes’ seemed to take on new meaning, to become a whole beautiful world in itself.

***

Noah was gone in the morning. Blue had somewhat expected him to be; it was a lot to ask for Noah to remain corporeal for a whole night. It still hurt a little bit, and then she was angry at herself for being hurt.

This left her out of sorts by the time she went down to the kitchen for breakfast. Maura and Calla were both there, Maura making tea and Calla making eggs.

“Hello dearest,” Maura said, her voice a touch brighter than usual. “Did you sleep well?”

“Fine,” Blue said, suspicious. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Calla barked out a laugh. “I think you just need to come see for yourself.” She removed the eggs from the stove flame and beckoned to Blue as she left the kitchen. Blue curiously followed her.

300 Fox Way didn’t have anything cultivated enough to call a garden. Every Spring Maura was gripped by her desire for a green thumb, and some rows were dug in the dirt and some seeds went into the ground. But she always lost interest or got busy with other things when it came time to actually tend to the garden throughout the Summer. Still, there were flowers growing haphazardly around, and even a few vegetables had managed to survive. 

Someone had plucked most of the flowers and used them to spell out ‘Blue’ in the grass of the backyard. Blue stared at it, uncomprehending at first, then slowly a grin spread across her face.

“If I had to take a guess,” Calla said, her arms crossed over her broad chest. “I would say that someone likes you very much.”

Blue kneeled beside her name. She took one of the flowers that made up ‘B’ and pressed the stem to her chest, feeling the echo of a ghost’s cold touch.

“I think you’re right,” she said, and laughed. This was the second Raven Boy who’d brought her flowers; she thought giddily that perhaps she might collect them all, and then laughed again at the thought of Ronan giving anyone flowers. 

The sun was shining, and the grass smelled green and alive. The night before had started out awful and ended with an experience that Blue never thought she’d be able to have. She turned around to look at Calla, whose mouth was turned up at the corner despite her unimpressed eyes. 

“Well? Who’s the culprit?” Calla asked. “The pretty one? Coca-cola shirt? _Not_ the snake.”

Blue shook her head. “It’s a secret,” she said happily, because for now Noah was hers and hers alone. She wanted to find her ghost and kiss him, wanted to bring him back to her room again, wanted him to know how loved he was. Not alive, never alive, but loved at the very least. She could give him that much.

**Author's Note:**

> _Hey, look up!_  
>  You don't have to be a ghost,  
> Here amongst the living.  
> You are flesh and blood!  
> And you deserve to be loved and you deserve what you are given.  
> And oh, how much! 


End file.
